Changes at Ancestry.com

Recently in the news, there's been more than one announcement about changes happening at Ancestry.com and AncestryDNA. First, AncestryDNA announced they were raising the threshold for how much DNA you have to share with someone in order to match them, and then came the news that Ancestry's primary owner, Permira, are selling to another company called Blackstone.

Cue the freak outs.

But really, everyone, it's going to be okay. Here's why.

AncestryDNA are raising the threshold for matching from 6 cM segments to 8 cM. I know this seems extreme, but remember that the vast majority (thousands) of your matches under 8 cM are identical by state, which means they do not share a common ancestor, at least not within any kind of genealogical time frame. And even those matches which you can identify a most recent common ancestor with, at this level of DNA, it's so unreliable, you can't be sure the shared DNA is actually coming from that ancestor after all. Because of this, these low matches can actually be leading you astray, not breaking down the brick walls you thought they would. By raising the threshold to 8 cM, AncestryDNA are assuring that the majority of your matches will be identical by descent and therefore more likely to be most useful to your research.

In fact, in the past, AncestryDNA was often criticized for their threshold being as low as 6 cM, as at least 7 cM was considered more the standard. And if you think 8 cM is extreme, don't even bother testing at 23andMe, where rather than have the same cM cut off point for everyone, instead they cap your match list at 2,000 matches (or if you tested long enough ago, it may be 1,000). Whatever cM your matches share with you at that 2,000 cut off is where they draw the line. So, for example, let's say your 2,000th match shares 12 cM with you - they will include everyone that shares 12 cM with you even if it goes above 2,000, but that's it, that's your cut off point, you won't have any matches sharing less than 12 cM with you. Personally, I was unfortunate enough to test when the cut off was 1,000, and they didn't raise it. My cut off point at 23andMe? 20 cM. That would basically only be my estimated 4th cousins or closer at AncestryDNA. Imagine your match list being cut off at only estimated 4th cousins or closer.

Additionally, AncestryDNA have promised not to remove any matches that you have marked in any kind of way. If you starred them, put them in a group, left a note, or messaged the individual, those matches, even under 8 cM, will remain on your match list. So you're not going to lose any info that you've already established, only the ones that you haven't gotten anywhere with yet, which are the ones most likely to be identical by state anyway. 

So AncestryDNA are not being unreasonable by raising their cut off to 8 cM. It's more in line with what is considered standard, it's still way better than the crappy deal you get at 23andMe, and you won't lose any established data. What I recommend doing is going through all your ThruLines or matches under 8 cM with Common Ancestors and star or group them somehow, so you at least don't lose those. For me, at least, this is worthwhile because most of my ThruLines wind up being accurate. You may also want to star ones that have trees - the ones that don't, you probably wouldn't get very far with anyway. You can easily do all this by going to your match list, selecting "Common Ancestors" and then under "Shared DNA" select "custom centimorgan range" and put in 6 to 7. For those with trees, click "Trees" and alternately select each of the options. This will help prevent you from losing those low matches which have some chance of actually being useful.

Now let's look at the second news: a change in ownership. When the news first broke, there was a lot of shouting about how the company taking over is a private equity firm, as though this is some of dirty word that we should all be terrified of. Well, guess what? The main company that's selling, Permira, who have been the primary owners of Ancestry for the last 8 years, are a private equity company too. The company is merely changing hands from one private equity company to another. (For the record, there are a few other companies that also held shares in Ancestry. and two have also sold to Blackstone, one is retaining a minority ownership along with Blackstone. They are also private equity companies, but Permira was the primary share holder, as Blackstone will now be).

Of course, any time ownership changes, it could mean changes for the company. People mainly seem concerned with their DNA and who has access to it. Blackstone responded to this by making a statement reassuring users that they won't actually have access to DNA data:

"To be crystal clear, Blackstone will not have access to user data and we are deeply committed to ensuring strong consumer privacy protections at the company," a spokesperson for Blackstone told Motherboard in an email. "We will not be sharing user DNA and family tree records with our portfolio companies."

Of course, companies can lie or change their mind, but there's no reason to think that's going to be the case. Remember, Ancestry was in the hands of another private equity company for 8 years up to now and no one seemed to have a problem with that. 

But wait, I hear people saying, the concern is that Blackstone have their fingers in the health industry, which surely means they acquired AncestryDNA to mine genetic data for the health companies they own! Our DNA is going to be sold or given to other companies without our consent!

It's true that Blackstone also has investments in the healthcare industry, that's what private equity companies do - they invest in other companies and frequently have investments in multiple different industries. But guess what? So does Permira. Yep, Permira also has investments in healthcare, yet that was never a problem for the 8 years that Permira were the primary owners of Ancestry.com and their massive DNA database.

Look, I'm not going to say nothing could ever happen to the security and privacy of your genetic data. Hacks happen. Illegal deals happen. Companies can violate their own TOS. But that's always going to be a risk, no matter the company you tested with, and no matter who owns it. This particular sale doesn't mean it's anymore likely than before or with any other company. If it really, deeply concerns you, then you shouldn't ever have your DNA tested anywhere, and if you already have, you should delete it immediately. If you understood the potential risks (which are low, in my opinion) and were okay with them before, there's no reason to suddenly be concerned now.

So before you buy into all this fear mongering, just do what genealogists always do: research! Before you freak out, do some research about these companies buying and selling Ancestry. Do some research about the validity of low DNA matches. You might come to the same conclusion I did. And if you don't, fair enough, at least you did your research and came to an informed decision, which is more than I can say about most of the fear mongering going on.